We have been hearing about AI in many different ways and technology pioneers have been slowly introducing AI in our daily lives. When it comes to Fusion Applications, Oracle has invested in built-in AI capabilities across all platforms and Supply Chain area is not an exception.
In this blog, I would like to discuss the newly designed Product Management Redwood Experience and a few AI capabilities that comes out of of the box.
The documentation and release notes can be found here: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/readiness/scm/25b/plm25b/25B-plm-wn-f37106.htm
A new navigator an enhanced user experience
There is a new icon ,”Product Management,” that is available under Product Management.
Product Management Icon
This will take the experience to the newly designed landing page
The page is designed in the new Redwood Experience and it has 12 pinned actions for easy access. Users can personalize the actions list by clicking on View all Actions link (green arrow) and adding the desired actions to the short list (red arrow)
I have tested the actions and the new design, and I would like to say that the experience is very seamless even some of the pages are still not on Redwood. The application will open a new browser tab if the action is on the classic fusion page.
One new terminology I came across is the usage of “Commercial Items” the classic Browse Items and Manage Items pages are not refereed as Browse Commercial Items and Commercial Items. They will be opened in classical pages.
Saved System Searches and the Navigator
Oracle Fusion Applications allowed users to save their searches, but they were not shareable. Now, the new Redwood Experience is enabling the users to do so. There is a navigator on the left hand side that a user can pin or call on demand from the bottom toolbar. In the Example below a user is creating a search for all items assigned to a specific organization and if they have structures. This could be a useful search for a Manufacturer Engineer. So instead of each Engineer creating such search, one cane save this search and it cane become a systemwide search.
After this is saved it becomes part of the navigator for easy access and convenience. In the screenshot below please see the pin icon, the bottom navigator and the added search to the menu
What are the AI Capabilities?
There are two features that I would like to address that I found quite useful.
AI Assist on coming up with the Item formatted description
This is a built in AI Assist feature in the Item Management screen. When the user is in the item management screen, there is an AI Assist icon that will pop up a Generative AI page.
Please see how Oracle has read the item attribution and created a great text to describe the items with features and capabilities. User has the option to accept this, edit this, and change attribution and regenerate the description. In my past experience, I have not had many clients using the formatted description, but with this feature, I can see this being used widely.
AI Assist on creating and maintaining manufacturers
At Perficient we do not manufacture but in this hypothetical use case, I will create Perficient as the manufacturer. Please not the nicely improved navigation and newly built manufacturer user interface. Once I filled the manufacturer field, I can leave all blank, I can fill out manually or I can click on the AI Assist button
Oracle AI Assist will bring all information about the Manufacturer in a matter of seconds. This is very powerful. For one, it brings efficiency, no one has to enter anything manually. Second, if the description and other information doesn’t sound right, the person creating the manufacturing can go an check their website to make sure that the manufacturer is correctly identified.
Conclusion
The new Product Management landing page and user interface will co-exist with the existing Product Information Management landing page. There are various improvements and AI capabilities using the newly designed Product Management landing page. I think this newly designed pages is a great opportunity to bring the user community to Redwood Experience and start taking advantage or built-in AI capabilities.
Contact Mehmet Erisen at Perficient for more introspection of this functionality, and how Perficient and Oracle Fusion Cloud can digitalize and modernize your ERP platform.
